Zoo at Syracuse's Burnet Park sets June 30 to open new elephant preserve

Syracuse, NY – Fans of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo’s elephants, circle June 30 on your calendars. That’s the date that the new Asian Elephant Preserve is scheduled to open at the zoo at Burnet Park in Syracuse, officials said this morning.

A ribbon-cutting and news conference will take place at 10 a.m. that day at the boardwalk behind the spectacled bear exhibit, said Lorrell Walter, speaking for the Onondaga County-owned zoo. The public is invited.

The $7.7 million preserve includes a new, 10,000-square foot Pachyderm Pavilion to house up to 12 elephants, a four-acre grazing yard and an “Elephant Overlook” that will let visitors view the elephants from distance.

Four elephants now live at the zoo. Three more herd members have been living at an animal park in Ontario since 2006. They will miss the opening because paper work still is being completed to allow them to cross the border, Walter said.

They're all part of an Asian elephant breeding program that zoo officials hope will preserve the species. About 35,000 Asian elephants are believed to still exist in the wild. The program was targeted Saturday by protesters from In Defense of Animals, a national group that opposes using elephants for entertainment.

The preserve is part of $8.5 million in renovations approved in 2007. The Friends of the Rosamond Gifford Zoo is paying 20 percent of the tab, or $1.6 million. The group also announced this morning that it had surpassed the $1 million mark in its fund raising campaign, amassing $1,030,287.